End or Beginning?
by The Altered Destinies
Summary: Third Impact has occured and the Instrumentality has claimed most of humanity, so what are survivors Asuka and Shinji to do? Along comes an unexpected friend with some equally unexpected answers...


Evangelion001

"End or Beginning?"

by Jim Robert Bader

(Featuring characters and situations created by Anno Hideaki, only modified a bit to void the horror that was "End of Evangelion")

Shinji had to admit to himself that for an end of the world scenario, the one he had just lived through was pretty spectacular, but the follow-up was a real let down.

He studied what remained of the area that had been his home for the past few months, the above-grounds cityscape that rested above the Tokyo 3 complex, where the war against the Angels had been fought and won, then lost. The tragedy of war came home with silent witness to the fall of NERV and the betrayal of humanity by his late and unlamented father. In many respects he could see the poetic justice of what had happened, and yet still some part of him cried out in dismay that the fates would have dared allow such a terrible thing to happen.

Now most of humanity was gone, and Shinji Ikari was among a mere handful of survivors left to put it all together from the wreckage. How this could be so was quite beyond his understanding since he was not a survivalist like Megune, nor a rugged self-possessed tower of strength like Touji. He did not have the wherewithal to assume command of a situation like Misato, he was just a boy who missed the comforts of a family life that he had never known growing up. His mother? Bonded with an Angel. His father? Better left not contemplated.

And his sole remaining companion? Asuka Soryu Langley, a girl who could barely tolerate Shinji at the best of times, and whose abrasive, often abusive personality was fueled by a love-hate relationship that she still carried on with the memory of her own deceased mother. In some ways Ikari could identify with what Asuka had grown up with, but his sympathy only went so far since he had chosen a different way to deal with his emotional problem, which was to run away and avoid all complications.

He was very good at doing that for the first thirteen years of his life, but then he had started to change, to grow inside as a person, to gain more confidence and become more self-assertive. He had even stood up to the last of the Angel attacks and the attack by SEELIE, who were intent on wiping out everybody in a mad attempt to stave off his father's grand master plan of forcing the next stage of human evolution. That plot by Gendo Ikari had ended disastrously when the Rei clone merged with Lilith and brought about much-  
dreaded Third Impact, thereby invalidating everything that NERV had ever stood for and which Ikari and the Eva Pilots had fought to prevent. [Way to go, Father,] he mused to himself grimly with no real trace of humor, knowing that he would forever bear the stain of being the son of the greatest mass-murderer ever to walk the surface of the planet.

"Hey, Shinji," he heard Asuka call out to him, "What's with the wool-gathering, Wonder-boy? We've got work to do, or would you rather we starve to death in these godforsaken ruins?"

"I know," Shinji sighed, turning back to employing his hoe to rake out leaves from the garden that he and Asuka now tended, the sole legacy of a fallen friend who would not be coming back again. It was hard work under the baking sun keeping the melon patch well tended so that he and Asuka would have some fruit and vegetables in their diet. Later on in the day they would continue to scavenge through the city for whatever remained behind that was either edible or useful, a practice once called "looting" back in times when the law was something which actually mattered. Surely not in these times when random gangs of survivors drifted in and out of the city like pale ghosts of forgotten yesterdays. Now all that mattered was the continued survival of the human race...time enough to think later on what had gone so tragically wrong to reduce humanity to such a pathetic standard.

It reminded Shinji that Third Impact had been a harvesting of sorts, where the spirits of billions of people had been swept up into that sea of goo that the Lilith-Rei hybrid had raised up to "cleanse" the planet. Only those who did not fit in with the great "Melding" of minds and spirits were expelled from the sweep, people like Shinji and Asuka, who retained some sense of identity which was stronger than the yearning to become one with the pact. What happened to the souls and bodies of those who had joined with Rei in the great Unity would probably forever remain a mystery beyond the minds of mortal men, and Shinji was perfectly happy with that, not liking to remember his own brief joining as a time when he had been confronted by his own tormented past. Having all the pretenses and illusions built up over a lifetime be ripped away, exposing the essence of just how screwed up his life had formerly been, was enough to make him fervently swear off self-reflection altogether. Fortunately-or unfortunately-there was some good to come with the bad from that experience, such as Shinji learning finally to accept himself, with all his limitations, as something more than the sum total of how other people saw him. He was a stronger person because of this, but even so, more alone than he had been at the beginning.

Alone because his father had intended him to be that way, to be a nearly autistic basket case of self-doubt and indecision, totally dependent on some external authority to tell him what to do and where to go...in other words, the perfect pawn for the schemes of his father. Only by coming to accept the truths that he had been running from all of his life did Shinji finally free himself from the trap set down by his paternal betrayer. Learning that the decisions he made would actually have an impact on others was one of the hardest realizations that Shinji had ever undergone, but it made clear to him that problems were not things to be avoided, that you had to step up to the plate and accept responsibility sometimes for the mistakes you made, but not necessarily to accept equal responsibility for the mistakes made by another.

He had always felt guilty in some way for anything that went wrong in his life, and that guilt had weighed him down the longer he fought against the Angels and came to discover a terrible truth about the hidden power that lay sleeping within him. The very reason his father wanted him for a pilot was the thing that had most terrified Shinji, that he was gifted (or cursed) with the powers of an Angel, able to summon up an Absolute Terror Field and counteract the effects of an Angel's ATF while piloting his Eva. He had not wanted this power, nor had he wanted to be in any way different from his peers in school, the other candidates for Eva Pilot training. Being different meant being **responsible** for using this terrible gift, and that meant facing the consequences of when he screwed up or misused this power, or when someone got hurt because of his carelessness, inexperience or hesitation.

With Asuka it had been the opposite problem. Her boisterous self-confidence had arisen from a desperate need to prove herself, to show the world that she was better than a mere "Doll," to demonstrate in some way that she was alive and thus validate her worth as a person. Being an Eva pilot meant everything to Asuka, a means of lashing out at the world and vaunting her superiority above others. Her deep frustration at being unable to best Shinji as a pilot had caused her to withdraw within herself as her illusions collapsed inwardly one atop another, leaving the hurt and angry child she was exposed to the cruelty of a world that did not care for failures. Somehow, in the end, she had rallied the strength and courage to best the enemy Evas sent by SEELIE to destroy them, and in doing so had achieved a kind of catharsis with the memory of her late mother. As it had turned out, her Eva WAS her mother incarnate, just as was the case for Shinji, and the final demonstration of her mother's love had been to eject her child to safety before engaging in the ultimate act of self-  
destruction to insure her daughter's ultimate victory and survival.

It still struck Shinji as odd how much Asuka had changed from that moment onward, though she was still at times the same stuck-up diva he had remembered meeting so long ago when they both had just been starting out as Eva pilots. Though bossy and at times incredibly stubborn, Asuka now smiled a lot more often as though remembering something pleasant, which was usually when she thought that Shinji would not notice. She still tended to keep to herself a lot at times, but they got along much better than in the old days, at least so much so that they could share the same quarters without Asuka snapping at him or biting his head off over the least little irritation.

They still had a ways to go before one could actually call them friends, let alone the other thing that was in their mind a lot these days. Asuka was still very skittish about the subject of sex, but she knew, just as well as Shinji did, that their options for romance these days were very limited, and that humanity's continued survival depended on their reproducing offspring. Sometimes they even made a joke about it, such as when Asuka called herself a "Brood Mare" and accused Shinji of wanting to "Stud" her. She had said it with a smile but Shinji could not quite find the joke as funny since he was certain that Asuka raised it as a test more than a serious suggestion. In truth they were not very compatible in terms of personality, but he supposed that might change over time as they got more used to being around one another, and as loneliness took some of the edge off their reservations.

They were both fourteen, however, and though Shinji was no doctor, he knew enough about biology to understand that Asuka was much too young to be carrying on with the burden of children. A few more years might tell a different story as her body blossomed out and her hips widened to allow safer passage for a baby to pass through from her uterus to the outside world. Shinji had made a point of studying one of the books they had scavenged that addressed this very subject and came away convinced that he was just as unprepared to be a father as Asuka was to become a mother. They had a lot of work to do in order to make a stable life for them both anyway, so children would definitely have to be put off for a couple of years before they could fulfill the "Adam and Eve" rolls that fate had assigned them.

"You're looking at me again," he heard Asuka said without her actually turning around to accuse him, "I can feel it."

"Um...sorry," Shinji turned away, examining the size of one of the melons to decide how much longer he would need to wait before it could be harvested.

"It's all right to look at a girl, you know," Asuka retorted with less than her usual venom, "Just as long as looking doesn't lead to touching."

"I said I was sorry," Shinji replied in mild annoyance.

"And that's another thing," Asuka snapped this time, "Don't apologize for everything. You're always apologizing, even when it's not your fault. It drives me so crazy sometimes...I mean, can't you get mad and shout at me once in a while like a normal person? I know I can be a real bitch sometimes, but..."

"Asuka," Shinji replied, having long ago given up on calling her Soryu, "I'm not going there, so why even bother to bait me? I was just thinking about...things...and I didn't mean to bother you..."

"Why should I be bothered?" Asuka replied, "I ought to be flattered, even if I don't have a lot of competition to compare to these days, right? I mean...not like when Wonder Girl was here to make me feel like a second stringer..."

"Asuka..." Shinji said tiredly.

"No, I mean it," she stuck her rake into the ground and gave Shinji a hard, unwavering look, "You still think about her even when you're trying not to. She was the perfect girl for you, wasn't she, Shinji? Smart, quiet, intense, always thoughtful and considerate, never rude or impolite. So what if she was your half-sister, or some fusion of an Angel and a clone of your mother? You would have wound up together with her and not me if things had been different, and there's no use trying to deny it."

"Asuka," Shinji was shocked, tilting back his straw hat to view his companion better, "How can you say that? I never compared you to her..."

"Oh no?" Asuka allowed her skepticism to show as she flashed him an annoyed stare, "Well, I sure have been comparing the both of us a lot, now that she's no longer in the picture. And you know what I think?" Her tone fell to a bare whisper, "I think I miss her almost as much as you do."

"Asuka?" Shinji blinked.

"It's funny, huh?" Asuka's chin fell down as she stared down at the dirt and leaned on her rake for support, "She was my exact opposite in a lot of ways, and I used to hate her for being so...so damned perfect! She was effortless in everything she did, she could even match resonances with you on the first try, and she never complained about anything. She didn't even care sometimes if the rest of us existed...but she cared about you. You were the only one who ever meant anything to her, other than your bastard of a father. She even sacrificed her life defending you, then they replaced her with that verdammt clone, the one who was really Lilith..."

"Asuka," Shinji repeated.

"It's...so damned unfair!" Asuka swore, her hair obscuring her eyes as she seemed to draw inwardly again, but in a different sense than when she was so full of hatred and self-loathing, "She wasn't the one who should have died! It was like she thought she was replaceable...but we both know that wasn't the case. She couldn't be replaced, not by a clone and certainly not by that...THING that ate everybody but spat the both of us out. She should have lived to be with you, not me! She never hurt anyone...she was so perfect for you..."

"Asuka," Shinji tried once again to get her attention, his eyes widening as he looked beyond his companion at something that was beyond her peripheral vision.

"I feel so lonely sometimes...knowing that I took her place, that I'm never going to be as important for you as she would have been...and...not that you're such a rich prize yourself, Ikari-kun, but still..." Asuka hesitated then added, "You know...even the little things she did that used to annoy the hell out of me...I miss everything, even the parts that used to scare me..."

"Asuka," Shinji very gently yet firmly cupped the redhead's chin and pointed her face sideways so that her eyes would come to rest upon the pale ghost standing just a little bit away from where they were standing, the one had appeared so suddenly that she might well have been nothing more than an apparition.

Asuka saw her and her eyes widened, though whether from fear or some other emotion could not so easily be determined. What she knew was that an impossibility now stood confronting them like a shadow from their past given form, albeit a pale shadow whose crimson eyes regarded them with disturbing familiarity, causing both Shinji and Asuka to shiver as if seeing a literal phantom.

"Ayanami?" Shinji asked, his tone making plain that he did not dare to believe it.

"Ikari," she said in that curiously atonal voice of hers, "Soryu...you are well?"

"It-it can't be..." Asuka murmured faintly, "Gott im Himmel...du bist todt..."

"I was," said Rei in a soft, matter-of-fact pronouncement, "But I am...better."

"B-Better?" Shinji stammered, "But...Ayanami..."

He suddenly felt Asuka's hand tighten on his shoulder, "Don't get too close, Shinji...she might be that demon bitch who betrayed us all to the Angels..."

"I am not," Rei assured them, her tone actually gaining some force and emotion, crimson eyes shimmering with a strange intensity that could almost have been genuine sorrow, "I'm the Ayanami Rei you knew...I've come back...somehow, and I want...I...want..."

"What do you want?" Asuka demanded with a wary expression.

"I...I want to be with you," Rei answered, "With both of you...Ikari...and you too, Soryu."

"But...how can you be here?" Shinji asked her, "You died when your Eva self-  
destructed..."

"Yes," Rei responded, then amended, "I mean...no...I remember activating the self-destruct device. The Angel had infiltrated my Eva, and Zero unit had to be destroyed. I could feel the Angel's presence in my mind, attempting to take me over, and I resisted this, I fought against it...then..."

"Then what?" Asuka asked with a slight frown.

"Then...nothing," Rei answered tonelessly, "I think I did die...my body did, anyway...but my mind...my...soul...lived on. I was aware of everything that has happened between then and now, but...I have not been able to affect events directly. There was another me...another unit, a clone...I was aware of how her thoughts differed from mine, she was not the same as me. She was...someone different..."

"Someone different?" Asuka's eyes grew wide, "Then who...?"

"I do not know," Rei replied, "But...I think it might have been Lilith...the original...my mother. She did the awful things that led to Third Impact. I watched as the world died at her hand...and yet you both lived on, and that made me...hopeful."

"It still makes no sense," Shinji said, "How can you be here now, Rei?"

"I...found a new body," Rei replied, "One of my clones...a Tabula Rasa..."

"But I thought all of the clones were destroyed!" Shinji protested.

Asuka shook her head, "No...one remained in a dummy plug that had never been activated. I believe they were attempting to use her to control your Eva, Ikari-kun...but she was rejected by it, just as your Eva rejected me. Your mother could sense that I was part Angel and refused me. When my clone was rejected she...merged with the amniotic fluid...do you remember when that happened to you?"

"Ah...sort of," Shinji reluctantly admitted.

"Her body was dissolved, and yet I could still sense her inside the fluid," Rei remarked, "And I was able to merge with it and help it regain corporeality. I found myself inside a plug and had to fight to open it from the inside, and then...I was here. That is all I know...all that I can remember."

"Then why didn't you show yourself until now?" Asuka wondered.

"I believe that I lacked the understanding to achieve this by myself for the longest time," Rei replied in that uncanny ghostly voice she always affected, "But someone showed me the way...and I finally understood...it was so easy once I grasped the essential principles..."

"Who showed you what?" Shinji asked, "Ayanami...what you're saying doesn't make any sense. Who showed you how to create a new body?"

"I did, Shinji-kun," another familiar voice answered, causing both Shinji and Asuka to jump while Rei arched a pale eyebrow and stared at the figure who was standing there behind them.

For a moment it took Shinji several seconds to frame the question, but then he gasped, "K-K-Kaoru? But...?"

"But I'm dead too?" the handsome youth smiled as he studied them with ageless wisdom, "Surely you can see that what applies to the body does not necessarily apply to the soul, and what works for Rei can work just as easily for me..."

All at once Asuka gave a cry and rushed at Kaoru, swinging her fist at the fair-  
haired young man with obvious intention to do him serious bodily injury. Without seeming to, however, Kaoru easily sidestepped her lunge and allowed Asuka to trip herself up as she stumbled and fell. Without seeming to be too concerned about this matter, Kaoru stuck his hands in his pockets and affected to be unconcerned by the matter as he casually remarked, "Hello to you, too, Asuka-chan. I see you remember me..."

"Oh, I remember you all right, Swienehund," she growled as she spat dirt out from her teeth, "You betrayed us all to the Angels!"

"You mean I attempted to," Kaoru corrected, "Yes...I was the seventeenth Angel, it was my job to bring about Third Impact, but you stopped me. I had nothing personal against you or Shinji or any of the other NERV personnel, save only for Ikari Gendo. I was just as happy to lose in my attempt, however, as I had especially no wish to bring harm or grief to you, Shinji-kun. In fact, that is why I am here now, to make right a grave injustice to you all, and to show you a way of undoing all of this carnage."

"S-Say what?" Shinji asked, not knowing if he would even like the answer, or trust its author enough to give him one directly.

"Shinji-kun," Kaoru said sadly, "The Angel War should never have been started. The world should not have been destroyed, and humanity harvested by Lilith. All that has transpired has been a terrible nightmare brought about through the actions of one man who dared to challenge the very mandate of heaven. It was wrong that the rest of you were swept up in these matter, you truly have done nothing in your lives to deserve such a fate."

"But can they trust you now to show them the way?" Rei asked, "I am grateful for the service that you rendered unto me, but...if it comes to mean a choice between siding with you or humanity..."

"You'll choose humanity, I know," Kaoru gave her a sad smile, "I sensed that in you from the beginning, that your ties here are much stronger than they were in heaven. Bringing you back from the threshold of half-life into which you were exiled is my attempt at reconciling the wrong done to you by the will of Heaven. The Gods are not always kind or just, Ayanami, they simply are the way they are. You either come to accept it, as most do, or...you make your own rules and seek to achieve a balance between their ways and the aspirations of mortals. In choosing to help you it seems that I have chosen humanity over Heaven myself, and yet I feel no qualms in this since I would sooner face the wrath of the gods than to allow you to suffer, Shinji-kun, or those who care for you very deeply."

"I...thank you," Shinji replied, feeling a great sadness come over him, "I'm sorry about what happened...I didn't want to have to kill you, I just..."

"You did what you had to do," Kaoru replied, rubbing his neck wryly, "Just as I did what was necessary, not what I wished to do. Angels do not act of their own volition, Shinji-kun...we are servants of the power, we do what we are told and only as questions later. I had no wish to doom humanity, it was my job, my duty...and I disliked having to do it every bit as much as you disliked having to pilot an Eva. I bear no qualms for your acting in the defense of humanity...if anything I owe you a great favor for freeing me from the prison of my former existence. Now I am free to do as you mortals would, to act of my own free will in the cause of justice. That is why I have come to you now...to make you aware of who and what you really are, and how you possess within you the ability to make right the tragic wrong that all endured at the hands of my people."

"Vas?" Asuka blinked, "You want to help us? But how?"

"The answer lies within Shinji-kun," Kaoru insisted, "It is to him that a great gift was bestowed during the great melding. You must look inside yourself now and discover what it is within you that prevented you and Soryu from being absorbed into the Instrumentality, the End of the World that your father helped to engineer."

"What there is about me?" Shinji asked, "About...us?"

"You must awaken, Shinji," Kaoru said sincerely, "Open your eyes and see that the world around you is not the end of all things, not this ruined and abandoned world that you and Asuka have created together. It is a facade, a barren shell created to mirror the emptiness that was in your heart when the Instrumentality happened. Do you remember what you were doing when all of this began to go wrong?"

"Remember?" Shinji asked, "Do I remember...what?"

"I remember being angry," Asuka remarked, "I remember hating myself, hating everything, hating NERV and all the people here...hating my friends...hating..."

"Your mother?" Rei asked, "You hated her for leaving you, for abandoning you, for treating you like a doll..."

"Yes!" Asuka said with more venom than Shinji could remember hearing in her voice for many a long month, "I hated her because she left me...she made me feel worthless and...alone..."

"But you know that isn't true," Kaoru said, "Your mother didn't leave you, nor did she hate you. The mother you knew was but a facade, a mere shell of the person she once was. The better part of her had been absorbed into your Eva..."

"Yes, I know that now," Asuka glanced down, "Momma protected me...she saved me in the end...at the expense of her own life...what kind of life it was, being part of my Eva..."

"She loved you beyond words because you were important to her, beyond the circumstances of her own body," Rei glanced down, "I never had that feeling going for me the whole time that I was piloting my Eva. It was a part of me, true, but only a shell to hide the real me, which was a part of Lilith..."

"And yet a part of you was also a part of Shinji...and of Asuka," Kaoru revealed, "You three are a part of each other. That is why you were so effective against my brethren and me, and why you nearly succeeded in your goal to protect humanity from itself...and yet still you hide from the truth and cling to the illusion of your perceptions. Think again, Shinji, of what you were feeling when all of this started."

"I remember...you, Kaoru-kun," Shinji replied, "You died in my hands...because of me...because of my Eva..."

"That is true, and yet...at the same time, not true," Kaoru replied, "Death is not the same for my kind as it is for you mortals, and in killing me you gave me the most precious gift of all, my freedom..."

"Your...freedom?" Shinji repeated.

"I was free from the prison that bound my kind, that compelled us to bring about third impact," Kaoru explained, "The limitations of the flesh, the bonds of servitude, the compulsion to serve the call of my programming, to create the Instrumentality by unleashing Adam and merging with his consciousness, though in the end it was Lilith whose mind was merged with the power of an Eva, with that clone of Rei who brought forth the Unity that absorbed most human life upon your planet."

"And yet...a part of me was not satisfied being a part of the whole," Rei explained, "Because I did not know true completion, because something was missing from me, a vital element that I had come to value."

"And what was that, Rei-chan?" Shinji asked with a slight hesitation in his voice.

"Yeah, what was missing, Wonder Girl?" Asuka asked with no little trepidation.

Rei's eyes rose up to embrace them both, and then she smiled, for her a very rare gesture, "What was missing was you...the both of you. You with your warmth, Ikari-kun, and you with your stubborn pride and your need to find self-  
worth and value, Asuka-chan. What brought me back was you...with the better part of my completion."

"And now you see," Kaoru nodded sagely, "You were never so alone when the three of you were a group, when you fought side-by-side as one team and not merely individuals, each pursuing his or her own direction. You did not know what you had going with you, Shinji-kun, any more than Asuka knew what was churning from within her, a desire and need to find self-definition. You both have defined yourself according to the wishes and designs of others...now you must awaken to see that without one another you are but three parts struggling at becoming a whole. And so I say once again...awaken."

"Awaken?" Shinji asked, then all at once he started up at his desk as he heard Asuka shouting at him about something.

"Wake up, you dummkopf!" Asuka snapped as she bounded a pencil off the back of his head, "Do you want the teacher to see you sleeping in class?"

"Huh?" Shinji glanced around, shocked to find that he was back in his old classroom surrounded by his fellow students...and with Asuka in the desk directly behind him while Rei sat beside him looking curiously in his direction.

"What are you, stupid?" Asuka demanded, "Don't you know that you're supposed to get plenty of sleep before a schoolday so you'll be mentally alert and sharp and...Oh, hi! Welcome back, Teacher!"

"Huh?" Shinji turned and saw the door to their classroom open, and then in stepped yet another familiar face, wearing her trademark cross about her neck and smiling warmly at her students.

"Good morning, class," she said with a bright smile, "How are you today?"

"Fine, Miss Katsuragi!" the entire class chorused together.

"Miss Katsuragi?" Shinji blurted, "Misato's the teacher...?"

"Yes," said a familiar voice at Shinji's other side, causing him to turn with a start and find Kaoru sitting there in class beside him, "And a very attractive one at that, though if I were you I would spend more time studying your lessons rather than try to peek up her dress like your classmates."

"Peek up her...?" Shinji felt his cheeks begin to color.

"Okay Class," Misato declared with hands on her hips and a haughty expression on her lovely features, "Time to face the music and turn in your homework! Let's see how many of you are really paying attention to what I'm teaching while the rest of you are flirting for my attention and trying to guess my breast size. Let's separate the men from the boys and the ladies from the powers..."

"Aw, this stuff is boring," Asuka complained as she removed several slips of paper from her folder, "When are you going to give us a real assignment, Teacher?"

"Oh, so we're not challenging enough for our resident girl genius, are we?" Misato mocked, "You think we should up the curriculum to your standards, make everyone else here do your level of homework? Pass their tests up to your high grade point average, Langley-san?"

"No, of course not," Asuka protested, "That would be ridiculous. Not everyone in this class is as smart as me. Take Shinji here for example..."

"Hey!" Shinji protested.

"Well, if you studied harder and didn't wuss out all the time in doing your homework..." Asuka glared at him as though this were an old, familiar argument.

"What is it with you two anyway?" Rei glared at them, turning an annoyed look in their direction, "The way you act it's like you're both going steady or something..."

"What?" Shinji asked, both for the accusation and the way in which Rei was speaking, not at all like her usual toneless self but closer to what a "normal" teenager might sound like if annoyed and vexed about two fellow students.

"What do you mean going steady?" Asuka replied just a bit too quickly, her expression more shocked than offended, "Me and Shinji? You've got to be kidding!"

"Oh, is that how it is?" Misato asked, smiling slyly at them both, "Is there something you've been wanting to tell us, Ikari-kun?"

"N-No!" Shinji protested, "We're not an item! We're just friends, we've known each other since...since...we were...kids together..." his tone dropped off as the impact of his words sank in.

"That's how it usually starts, right?" Rei scowled, "And if there's nothing more there, then why has Soryu-san been glaring at me since the first day I showed up in your class, right after she found out that you looked up my dress and saw my panties!"

"But...I never...that didn't..." Shinji felt his confusion intensify, the more so when Touji put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him a bit too tightly.

"Oho, so that's why you'd rather hang out with the girls instead of us, your buddies, eh?" the larger boy said as he gave Shinji a comradely grin of conspiratorial indulgence.

"I am so shocked at you, Ikari-kun," Kensuke complained, "I thought we were all united in a sacred trust to pledge our love to someone else we all hold sacred..."

"Someone else, boys?" Misato arched a purple eyebrow, "Like maybe an older woman?"

"N-N-No! Nothing like that, Misato-sama!" Kensuke protested.

"It's a sacred trust, we can't discuss it," Touji said nervously, "Honest!"

"Shinji," Asuka glared, "Are you telling us you've got a crush on Katsuragi-  
Sensei? Our teacher?"

"NOOO!" Shinji stood up and turned to look at them in dismay, "That's not how it is! I mean, I know Misato-sama is a good looking woman and all that..."

"You're darned right I am," Misato responded.

"But she's...older than me, and she's a lush...I mean...she drinks a lot, and she's a Major...and our superior officer and..."

"Huh?" Misato reacted, "I'm a what?"

"Ikari-kun, what are you talking about?" Touji asked, "Misato isn't like that...is she?"

"Shinji," Asuka glared at him, "Have you lost what passes for your mind...?"

"No!" Shinji protested, "This is wrong, this is all wrong! None of this is the way it should be...the way I know it is! Asuka, Ayanami, Misato...you're all...this isn't right! This isn't the way it's supposed to be! It's...!"

"The way it seems to be on this world?" Kaoru finished for him, "The way it is on a world where there was no Second Impact, where the Angels and not attacking you all the time and where Asuka and Rei are not your fellow pilots united in a struggle to preserve humanity but are just two ordinary fellow classmates, both of whom have an interest in you that goes beyond the level of mere friendship?"

"Yes...no...I mean...it is?" Shinji turned to look at the other boy, seeing Kaoru's gentle smile as the other boy gave him a knowing look of understanding and comprehension.

"You wished for a world in which these things had never occurred," Kaoru explained, "Where you could pursue relations with your friends and companions without constantly fearing the danger of going into battle, of being hurt, of hurting other people...in other words, a world where you did not have to be responsible for the lives of everyone else upon the planet."

"That was...weird," Asuka shuddered as the classroom dissolved all around them, leaving only the three pilots and Kaoru as Misato and their classmates vanished altogether, "It was like being inside a movie and reciting lines...I knew that I was talking and acting funny, and that something was wrong with my memories, but..."

"Yes," Rei replied in her usual toneless manner, "I felt it too. It was like being a different person entirely. Only Ikari-kun was himself during all of this."

"The reason for that is because Shinji is at the very heart of the Instrumentality," Kaoru explained, "He is a Nexus of Probabilities, born in counterpoint to the events of the Second Impact. You three were each created by the same phenomenon, exactly as I, save that I was born with the full knowledge of what I am and what I was destined to do programmed deep within my subconscious. It took many years for those memories to become active, but now that I have experienced life as a human I find so much that I took for granted as an Angel to be...questionable at best."

"Oh yeah?" Asuka turned to the strangely Bishonen boy and frowned, "Like how?"

"Understand the nature of our reality," Kaoru explained, "What you call Angels, or Messengers, are the Nefflim of old, the product of an ancient union between mortal man and the divine. The true Angels were our long-ago forefathers sent to Earth to guide early Man in the course of his spiritual and physical evolution...but over time some Angels became more than enamored with certain aspects of humanity, and so the union of mankind and the divine produced us...the Giants of the Earth that you have heard so much about in legend."

"Giants?" Shinji asked, his mind instantly flashing to the various Angels they had encountered, then contrasting those with the slender boy before them.

"In a manner of speaking," Kaoru replied, "Over time our ancestors divided into two great camps and began a war for dominance between those who wished to continue meddling in the world and those who thought they had wrought too much harm through meddling and wanted to separate themselves from humanity in order to contain the damage wrought by their own folly. The side that wished to continue to toy with the development of human beings became known as the fathers of the various races you call demons. They were drunk with their own power and had to be cast down for the good of all creation else they would have brought to Earth the Hell that they created upon the planes to which they were banished. The triumphant forces, who pretentiously named themselves the Children of the Light, chose to separate themselves from the mortal world and created a realm of beauty and sanctuary that today are called the Heavens, and from that lofty perch they bask in the glory of the Unity Mind, or Godhead, whom they serve as devout children. We Nefflim are the ones they left behind, the Angels of the Earth who are neither of Heaven nor entirely human, and over time some of us evolved to become the Gods you mortals worshipped in days of old. A few, like myself and my brethren, remained immortal and uncorrupted, but still so old and vast in our knowledge and prowess that we began to change and evolve to become elemental aspects of our true nature. Each of us became a different, select individual or Titan and over the centuries have stood apart and watched humanity as you multiplied and took over the planet. We waited our time, knowing that one day the call would come for us to rise up and fulfill our sacred mission..."

"Sacred mission?" Asuka repeated with a disquieted expression.

"He means the judgement of humanity by the Angels," Rei replied, "And the Instrumentality that could save us all from destruction."

"Exactly," Kaoru nodded, "Humanity has been evolving, but only slowly, gradually, moving closer to the light yet in a stumbling, imprecise and highly chaotic manner. You are not the same as your ancestors when you lived in caves and made tools by chipping rocks, and yet you are not much different in the respect that you are now more apart from nature than you are joined to it. Civilization has become isolated from itself and human consciousness is fragmented along spiritual and psychological lines, producing a deep sense of alienation that has made you all the more aware of your aloneness. For humanity to evolve further will take a drastic change in consciousness to make you more aware of the hidden nature that you have divested yourself from...and thus the Instrumentality will join all thoughts together and help you reunite to a level of consciousness that you could not previously imagine."

"But I don't want to evolve!" Shinji protested, "Why should you force us to change into something that suits your interests more than it does ours? Who are you to make us suffer all of this just so you can turn the ones who survive into your own mindless puppets?"

"Shinji's right, Kaoru," Asuka scowled, "Why are you making us go through all this hell just so you can sit back and play God, deciding how we get to live the rest of our existence? We didn't ask you to butt in and force us to change to suit your lofty pretensions!"

"But Kaoru-san is not the one making any of this happen," Rei pointed out, "We are...you, Ikari and myself."

"Say what?" Asuka blurted.

"Don't you see by now, Asuka and Shinji?" Kaoru smiled, "Humanity is the Eighteenth Angel. Your father knew this and sought to bring about the Instrumentality in order to induce a change in human consciousness and evolution."

"M-My father?" Shinji stammered.

"Who do you think it was who brought about Second Impact?" Kaoru replied, "When Doctor Katsuragi Hideo made his discovery in the arctic after tracing a line of clues from various excavations in Peru, he contacted your father and briefed him on his research, knowing that Ikari Gendo was doing similar analysis in a related field. The two of them compared notes, then Misato's father gave Gendo some samples to have analyzed at a distant research station. The next day after your father flew back to Japan, Doctor Hideo's team made the fatal mistake of awakening Adam, and that brought about the events leading to Second Impact and the awakening of Lilith. It was fortunate that your father was able to convince people in authority to act in time to prevent Lilith from reuniting with Adam, and by using the Spear of Longinus, he was able to subdue Lilith for a time, but the event shook up the powers that be and made humanity aware that it was under threat from the rest of the Nefflim Angels."

"So Doctor Ikari created me," Rei said quietly, "Using genetic material taken from Lilith and grafted into a woman's egg to create a half-human/Angel pilot."

"The original egg donor was a research assistant named Ayanami Naoko," Kaoru explained, "But something went wrong shortly after the birthing of the child...Lilith tried to awaken and take over the human DNA. The mother...did not survive the process. Doctor Akagi was forced to salvage the child's DNA by combining it with another compatible egg donor...none other than your mother, Ikari Yui, in order to strength the human aspects of the baby and thus neutralize Lilith."

"My...mother?" Shinji blinked, then turned and stared in amazement at Rei, who looked back at him with an almost apologetic expression.

"It's true...we are related," Rei explained, "At least...part of our DNA sequence is the same, though not as much as would be the case of a true brother and sister..."

"You mean you two...?" Asuka looked from one pilot to the other and winced before adding, "It figures!"

"Huh?" Shinji looked at the redhead, "Why do you say that?"

"Because...well, just look at you two!" Asuka waved a hand in disgust, "You're both so polite, you're self-effacing to a fault, neither one of you has an ounce of independence, you just do whatever you're told like a pair of..."

"Robots?" Kaoru asked, "Or were you about to say Dolls?"

"Hey!" Asuka winced, "That's not...!"

"No, it is not," Rei agreed, "A doll is what your mother compared you to, but you never knew the reason why she did that, Soryu-san. It was not because she was rejecting the real you..."

"It's because that's what you were to Ikari Gendo," Kaoru explained, "A doll, one he fashioned in the likeness of his own designs. You see, you share with Shinji and Rei the distinction of being conceived by means of Gendo's research. You had a human father and a mother, but when you were still an embryo the egg that became you was implanted with DNA taken from Adam..."

"No...!" Asuka was horrified, "I-I don't believe you...you're lying!"

"He is telling the truth, Soryu-san," Rei replied, "You were gifted from birth with the same genes that made Ikari and me such exceptional pilots. Why else do you think that you have the ability to create an AT field? You are partially Angel yourself, so gifted with exceptional abilities in order to fight the Angels and help bring about the Instrumentality itself..."

"NO-it can't be true!" Asuka started trembling, "Are you saying my gifts, everything I ever accomplished, was all because of some damned tinkering with my-!"

All at once Shinji acted upon an impulse that startled even him. He gripped Asuka by the arms to steady her then looked her in the eyes and said, "No...that's not what they're saying. You're not a freak, Asuka, any more than me or Rei..."

"Let go of me!" Asuka protested.

"I won't!" Shinji said with a force that was surprising, "Don't you see? It all makes sense now...I never realized it before...but it's starting to come clear to me...my father, your mother, what happened with Rei and the others...don't you see? It was all because my father was playing God with all of us! He's the one who should be blamed for treating us like pawns. If anyone deserves to be called a monster...it's him."

His sudden burst of raw nerve collapsed just then and Shinji let Asuka go, looking down at his own feet as the realization settled upon him like a weight across his shoulders.

"Now at last you see," Kaoru slowly nodded, "Ikari Gendo used you, he deliberately shaped you to become his perfect soldiers. In Rei's case this was obvious, she was an experiment gone right, yet flawed because of the taint of Lilith. Your mother, who supported your father's research, ultimately gave herself up to become the EVA you knew as Unit 01, just as Soryu's mother partially merged with Unit 02 and lost a critical part of her own mind in the process. What was left of her was crippled and diminished, a body with only half a spirit, so when she ended her life she was seeking to find the solace that eluded her...and all because she trusted Gendo and blindly followed his lead."

"Then...all that time when I thought she didn't care for me..." Asuka felt a sob building up in her, remembering those last desperate moments when her mother had seemed to come alive within her, when she fought within Unit 02 and avenged the destruction of NERV headquarters...but at such a terrible cost...

"Soryu," Rei moved closer but did not quite reach out to her, "Your mother loved you...even when she could not express it. Though she became half a person in order to provide you with an EVA, she never gave up hope for you. She loved you to the last, even when the part of her you knew retreated into madness."

"She called me a doll," Asuka shivered, "She wouldn't even look at me...when she hung herself...the doll..."

"Was her way of expressing her regret for having failed you as a mother," Kaoru said gently, "Leaving you in Gendo's care, to be raised by foster parents, was tantamount to allowing you to become a doll for his ambition. Similarly, with Shinji, he deliberately ignored and abandoned you, emotionally crippled you, his own son, so that you would have a craving, a need for attention, a desire to please your father, and thus you would become obedient to his wishes...when the time came for you to fulfill your true mission."

"But Ikari failed to consider the part of you that belonged to your mother," Rei explained, "The humanity that would not sacrifice a friend or abandon an ally in times of crisis. Rather than surrender yourself to the Instrumentality you regained your self of yourself and thus resisted the call of Lilith."

"And now you have the opportunity to make right the mistakes wrought upon you by your father," Kaoru revealed, "It is the Instrumentality, where all things are possible and where the fate of humanity rests with you and your sister pilots."

"Oh...us?" Asuka pointed at Shinji, "Don't you mean him?"

"He means us...all three of us, Soryu-san," Rei replied, "We are the key to unraveling the mystery of what is to become of the next phase of human evolution."

"Exactly so," Kaoru agreed, "From the time of the first Chaos War to the present the human race has been slowly and subtly changing, moving on to another level of consciousness that marks the beginning of a whole new era. Unfortunately, while some humans aspire to greatness, others mire themselves in worldly pursuits and become easy prey to the influence of the Demon worlds. It is this precarious balance that has been of greatest concern to the Angels, and the reason why we were each programmed with a the latent desire to bring about the next phase of growth, a desire that was triggered the moment that Adam was first awakened."

"Then my father is responsible for all of this," Shinji raised his head, "He's the one who upset the balance, who set the Angels against humanity, who brought about Second Impact and the deaths of half the people on the planet!"

"Actually, he shares responsibility there with the late Doctor Katsuragi," Kaoru noted, "That is why Misato was always beset by a need for redemption and forgiveness, why she blamed herself for being the only survivor at the Antarctic base camp, for having witnessed first-hand the horror that was Second Impact. You marvel that she developed a drinking problem and indulges in so many blatant acts of self-destructive behavior? That beneath the kindness and the motherly interest that she has showered upon the three of you she is plagued by insecurity and self-loathing? That she is willing to take risks that would daunt a soul more inclined towards self-preservation?"

Shinji suddenly had a sense of deja-vu, and then all at once he found himself huddled beneath a stairway, cornered in an ally by three goons who were seeking to kill him. In a flash that was part memory and part reliving the experience he sensed Misato coming to his rescue, of her killing the SEELIE agents with crisp and ruthless efficiency, then coaxing him to come with her, to return to NERV headquarters, which was under siege, to all the death and pain and killing that was going on all around him with people he knew or saw on a daily basis being cut down by weapons fire, of men and women being shot dead without mercy...of Misato getting caught in an ambush and shoving Shinji into the capsule before firing him off in Unit 01...

"Stop it!" Shinji cried, clutching at his scalp, "Stop it-STOP IT-STOP IIIIT!"

There was a wrenching sense of the world swirling around him, and then he heard a voice ask, "Shinji, are you all right?"

"H-Huh?" Shinji asked, opening his eyes as the dizziness and pain receded, and then he blinked at the sight of his own classroom once again, then turned to see whose hand was resting upon him in such a casual manner. He turned and blinked when he saw Class Leader Hikari looking at him with concern in her expression. Other members of his class were similarly looking at him funny, including Kensuke and Touji.

"I said...are you all right, Shinji-kun?" Hikari asked, "You started holding your head and crying out loud like someone was hurting you and..."

Shinji turned around and found Rei and Asuka similarly staring at him, only their eyes reflected his own look of surprise (well, Asuka did, anyway, while Rei just seemed...puzzled about something). The only one who did not seem in any way surprised was, of course, Kaoru.

"You okay, Man?" Touji asked with a concerned expression, "They're not working you too hard over at NERV, are they?"

"I..." Shinji turned to his fellow pilots and said, "Soryu...Ayanami?"

"Vast ist?" Asuka looked around with helplessness and confusion,.

"We appear to be back in the past," Rei noted with her usual toneless expression giving only the barest hint of genuine amazement, "Some events that we remember...have yet to happen."

"Please, excuse me," Kaoru moved past Touji and Kensuke and smiled, "I know that I'm the new transfer student here, but I'm sure that Ikari-kun just needs a little fresh air and some space. With all that he must have upon his mind it would hardly do to crowd him."

"Yeah?" Touji eyed the other boy suspiciously, "And just what would you know about it?"

"Kaoru...what's going on?" Asuka asked of the boy, dropping her volume to a whisper.

"You have a chance to remake history," Kaoru smiled back, "Is there something wrong with that?"

"Huh?" Kensuke blinked, "What are you two talking about...?"

"The fate of the world and all of humanity," Rei replied with her usual dead-  
panned candor.

"Oh, is that all?" Hikari smiled, "Everybody back to your seats before the teacher gets back and finds us behaving like delinquents. Ikari-kun, if you need to be excused to visit the Nurse's office, I'll understand."

"Um...no, I'll be all right," Shinji turned to Kaoru and murmured, "How did we...?"

"You did it, Shinji," Kaoru said in a tone that only carried a few feet, "With your mind and your heart. You wished us back in time to a point where you were the closest to being happy, just before things started going wrong at NERV, before Rei died and Touji was selected to be a pilot..."

"You mean...before the fifteenth Angel?" Asuka blanched, "But..."

"You know now what will happen when they bring that new EVA unit to Japan," Kaoru explained, "You can act to prevent a replay of history from that point onward, to thwart the destruction that will cause Rei to sacrifice her own life, and you can act to protect the people at NERV against SEELIE, now that you know how far those ruthless overseers who fund the Evangelion project are willing to go to protect what they foolishly see as their own interests."

"You mean that we can act against SEELIE...and Ikari Gendo?" Rei remarked, "We can prevent my clone from merging with Lilith...and the subsequent absorption of humanity?"

"But...Kaoru...why are you helping us?" Shinji asked.

"Yeah," Asuka remarked, "I mean...if you're an Angel too..."

"It's the Instrumentality," Kaoru smiled, "The rules are different here, and I'm no longer bound to the program that governs the actions of my fellow Nefflim. I can help to guide you, show you where to avoid the mistakes that caused the death of so many of your loved ones. I can show you how to bring about an Instrumentality that does not require the absorption of ninety-nine tenths of the human race. The world that would have resulted from that...was too grim to be allowed to happen. It would have taken humanity too long to build back from the brink, and consciousness might not have evolved correctly. It might have all been for nothing, but now there is hope, thanks to you, Shinji."

"To me?" Shinji said, "But...Soryu...and Ayanami..."

"They are a part of this too," Kaoru smiled at the two girls and said, "The three of you are part of a larger circle, but united together there is nothing that you cannot accomplish. Asuka...you know now why you lost synchronization with your EVA. It was because you were rejecting your mother, not the other way around. She is still there inside your unit, and if you want to learn the truth about her you have the chance you have always needed."

"M-Momma?" Asuka's voice shook with hope, disbelief and longing.

"And Rei...you now know more about yourself than you even dared imagine," Kaoru smiled at his fellow hybrid Angel, "Does it in any way change the feelings that you have for Ikari?"

"N-Nani?" Shinji blinked.

Rei did something very unusual for her...she smiled, and she looked at Shinji with a warmth that rarely shown in her crimson eyes, her smile lighting up her unusually pallid, ghost-like features.

"I would like for things to be different this time," she remarked, her eyes full on Shinji, who colored at once without fully understanding the reason.

"Man, what are they talking about over there?" Kensuke wondered.

"Pilot stuff mostly," Touji grunted while resting his chin on his arms across his desk.

"Man, I wish I was a pilot too," Kensuke complained for the fifty-eighth time, a refrain that was growing old as far as it concerned Touji, "Shinji is so lucky..."

"You mean the way he gets to live with Misato and has a cute babe like Rei working alongside him?" Touji asked, "Don't forget he also has to work around Asuka, and that's a fate I definitely don't envy."

"That's enough you two," Hikari glared at the boys, then turned and said, "Shinji-kun, Asuka-chan, Ayanami...please be seated. You're holding up the entire classroom."

Shinji promptly sat down, dull amazement giving way to a sense that things were suddenly very different on his horizons. Just looking around at his school and classmates and realizing that they all could be dead on account of his screwing things up in the future was a sobering enough thought to make him wonder if such a fate could truly be avoided. Was he fated to make the same mistakes all over again, or did he really have a chance to make a difference? With Rei and Asuka also sharing memories of a future in which there was no hope...it was enough to make him wish that he had as much confidence as Kaoru. The other boy might be part Angel, and thus had intimate knowledge of the other side of the battle, but for some strange reason he seemed to sincerely want to help Shinji and the girls resist the fate that led to the Third Impact.

"Just remember, Shinji-kun," he heard Kaoru say from the seat just off to the right and behind him, next to Kensuke and Touji, "I believe in you, and my trust is rarely misplaced."

Once again Shinji found himself coloring at a remark made in his direction, but now his other friends were looking at the new boy with funny expressions, as if they were starting to suspect that the transfer student were just a little bit more than slightly enamored with Shinji, and that had some rather...disturbing implications considering how Shinji felt when in the other boy's presence.

Just then the Teacher entered the room and Shinji sighed in resignation, ready to endure yet another boring lecture about the Second Impact. Knowing the truth behind the myth that public policy had put forth, he refrained from having to correct the teacher, but to his surprise Kaoru raised his hand and drew immediate attention in his direction.

"Excuse me for saying so, Sir," Kaoru remarked, "But wouldn't it be more accurate to say that a meteorite striking the southern pole is a phenomenon of such incalculable rarity as to put the odds behind it into the 'Act of God' category?"

"Um...well...yes...I suppose you could put it that way," the teacher replied, more than slightly flustered.

"But would a God of love and compassion truly despise humanity so much that he would punish all the nations of the world with an act of such widespread horror and devastation? Knowing that the rich and poor were drowned along with the just and the unjust seems rather a wasteful means of teaching humanity a lesson...don't you agree?"

"Well, yes...but...what's the point?" the teacher asked rather plaintively.

"Exactly," Kaoru smiled, then refrained from answering his own question.

Asuka and Rei glanced towards the other boy with expressions of mingled curiosity and interest while Shinji found himself forced to hold his own face implacably fixed lest he break out in laughter, having see the pompous teacher get taken down a peg by the clever means in which Kaoru had driven his lecture right off the verbal railroad tracks.

Rei then raised a hand, startling both the class and their teacher as she had never before volunteered an unsolicited opinion. When the teacher wordlessly nodded her way she said, "I believe that the point, which Nagisa-san is making, has to do with the nature of destiny and the human condition. Seemingly random acts of nature that take a human toll would appear to contradict the notion of a benevolent god being in charge of the universe. And yet the question of benevolence implies a human motivation, as does wrath, spite and jealousy, and would a Universal God act through such haphazard means to achieve his ends? One would tend not to believe so."

"In other words...shit happens?" Asuka hesitantly ventured.

"In so many words, yes," Rei replied, giving Asuka what had to be a friendly smile, though the conspiratorial nature of what it implied caused Shinji to raise both eyebrows.

"Miss Langley," the teacher scowled, "I would prefer it if you do not use language like that in my classroom..."

"But teacher," Kaoru spoke up once again, "Is not clear and free expression the goal of every creative mind yearning to breathe free from the constraints of precedence and conformity? Free will is a very precious thing indeed, and I admire candor when I hear it spoken, as should all humanity, for to be without freedom or will is a terrible burden indeed, little better than living in a prison, even if others should name it Heaven."

Shinji had to blink at that, and so did the teacher. All of a sudden the world seemed to be a very different place, full of possibilities that he would never before have imagined, and a sense that hope might well be on the horizon made the future seem a little brighter, even if his natural reticence warned him not to get his hopes too high as strange things were likely to happen as he was no longer reading from the original script. But with Rei and Asuka united behind him...and Kaoru willing to offer them guidance, there at least was a chance that they might get through all of this alive...and preferably save humanity itself in the bargain.

On the whole, he reasoned, it was not a bad way to start a new beginning...

Continued.

Comments/Criticisms/Evangelion Revisionism: shadowmane

I wrote this at the urging of a friend because we both agreed that "End of Evangelion" sucks and that Shinji got a raw deal, and that being stuck with Asuka to repopulate the planet is the sort of fate you wouldn't want to inflict on your worst enemy, and that the deaths of Misato and Rei constitutes a crime against all humanity perpetrated by the original author. Naturally I wanted to create a scenario where a fresh start was possible, where Shinji might wind up with one or both of the girls (or Kaoru, in a yaoi sense) or that Rei and Asuka might make amends (in a very yuri sense of the word ^_^) and that Misato might find love and happiness herself (either with Kaji-which is Canon, or with Ritsuko, which definitely is not-Canon ^_6). So blame me if I put my own spin on the EVA mythos, and if I took a few creative "guesses" to fill in the pot-  
holes of the original plot (the idea that Rei is only partially the daughter of Ikari Yui, for example). It still beats letting the entire NERV cast get wiped out by those bastards at SEELIE!

So, is this a one-shot or the prelude to a series? In truth I don't really know, but it is a good way to set things up in case I want to do more with the characters in the future, ne? Voiding a real downer of a future clears the slate for me to make my own rules for the future, and possibly keeping everyone alive so that relationships can be pursued that were only hinted at in the main series. I welcome your comments on this and what you may think about my "educated guesswork," and I'd love to hear suggestions on where I might go with this in the future.

My thanks to Bill Riddle for his ideas in the making of this chapter, and I hope this pleases him since he's been after me a bit to do a "Honeymoon" story for Rei and Shinji, and possibly even Asuka. The idea of adding Kaoru to the mixture is mine, but just how far to go with that is something I'd rather leave open for the moment, thank you very much. (6_6) Also thanks to the other Bill, Guiroff, who has kindly offered to proofread this chapter for me and offer me his comments. I hope I didn't offend too many people out there with my speculation as to the religious significance of the Angels. The Biblical story about the Nifflem (or Nephlem, hard to say with ancient Hebrew) seemed a good way of fitting in the concept of a hostile force of invading monsters with ties to the Kabala being factored into the overall mixture. I have used this concept elsewhere and it seems to fit in the best with tying the Angels to an actual existing philosophical/religious system.

Well, that's it for now, but next time I'm definitely exploring the untapped questions about the relationships of the cast of EVA, and that means letting Yuri and Yaoi concepts be floated out in the mixture, possibly even doing it as a Lemon. ^_- Until then, keep reading!

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If you wish to check out my other works, Please check out my Fanfiction webpage at: ~ All related chapters of this series can be found there along with my other works. 


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